US Election: Paul Ryan announced as Mitt Romney's running mate

Mitt Romney has taken a rare political gamble in an attempt to change the
direction of the US presidential campaign, unveiling Paul Ryan, a radically
conservative young congressman, as his running mate.

Pail Ryan, left, was unveiled earlier than anticipated, prompting suggestions Mitt Romney recognised a need to deliver an adrenaline shot to his campaign, which has been on the defensive for several weeksPhoto: Reuters

The Republican challenger for the White House announced Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the 42-year-old author of the party's drastic plan to slash public spending, as his prospective vice president.

Appearing together at a rally in Norfolk, Virginia, the pair attacked Barack Obama's "record of failure" and claimed that they were "America's comeback team".

Standing in front of USS Wisconsin, a Second World War battleship, Mr Romney hailed Mr Ryan as "an intellectual leader of the Republican Party", adding: "He appeals to the better angels of our nature".

"He understands the fiscal challenges facing America: our exploding deficits and crushing debt, and the fiscal catastrophe that awaits us if we don't change course," he told 2,000 cheering supporters.

Amid a sea of flags and placards on the dock, Mr Ryan warned the US was "running out of time" to fix its economy and said: "It is our duty to save the American dream for our children and theirs".

"The hopes of our country, which have inspired the world, are growing dim," he said. "They need someone to revive them. Governor Romney is the man for this moment".

Mr Ryan was unveiled earlier than anticipated, prompting suggestions Mr Romney recognised a need to deliver an adrenaline shot to his campaign, which has been on the defensive for several weeks.

It appeared to mark a shift in Mr Romney's strategy after Mr Obama's slim lead in opinion polls has remained stubborn despite continuing economic woe. Having framed the election as a straightforward referendum on the president's record, Mr Romney has now signalled that it should be seen a choice between two sharply different political philosophies.

Ari Fleischer, the Republican strategist who was White House press secretary under president George W Bush, said: "The race can now be summed up in four words: reform versus status quo."

Mr Romney had been expected to select Rob Portman, an Ohio senator and Republican greybeard, who would have quietly reinforced his deliberately vague message of economic competence.

By instead picking the doe-eyed darling of the anti-government Tea Party movement, Mr Romney will excite the Republican "base" and ease Right-wing fears that he may not live up to his fiscally conservative rhetoric.

A staunchly anti-abortion Roman Catholic, Mr Ryan should also reassure evangelical Christians and other "pro-lifers" concerned by Mr Romney's moderate stance on the issue when running for Massachusetts governor in 1994, and by his Mormon faith. Ralph Reed, the head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said he was an "inspired, outstanding selection".

He wants to overhaul Medicare, the health service for elderly Americans, replacing it with a subsidised voucher system. Opinion polls suggest that this is opposed by a vast majority of voters. Florida, a key swing state that Mr Romney probably needs to win, contains millions of retirees and ageing voters.

Following the publication of his plan, an actor resembling Mr Ryan was shown in a Democratic television attack advertisement pushing a wheelchair-bound grandmother off the top of a cliff.

Democrats on Saturday vowed to place the issue at the centre of the election campaign, shifting attention from the unemployment crisis on which Mr Romney had previously vowed to focus relentlessly.

"His plan would end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors," said Jim Messina, Mr Obama's campaign manager.

Mr Ryan, who boasts of his encyclopaedic knowledge of budget minutiae, also wants to slash spending on Medicaid, the health service for the poor, as well as education, infrastructure and other programmes. Mr Romney has carefully kept the plan at arm's length.

The plan was even denounced as "Right-wing social-engineering" during the Republican primary campaign by Newt Gingrich, the conservative former House Speaker.

However, Mr Ryan may benefit from not being a household name. A CNN poll yesterday found that 27 per cent of voters had a favourable view of him and 19 per cent unfavourable. 54 per cent were "unsure".

His ability to enact policy is also likely to be greatly reduced if he is elected vice president and gives up his chairmanship of the influential Budget Committee of the House of Representatives.

He will debate against Joe Biden, the vice president, in Kentucky on October 11. The clash may present a challenge to Mr Biden, a pugnacious everyman who rarely delves into detailed policy debate in public.

By contrast Mr Ryan is known as the "numbers guy" of the Republican "young guns" in Congress. With Eric Cantor of Virginia and Kevin McCarthy of California, he is credited with aggressively rebuilding the party after its washout in 2008, when Mr Obama took the White House.

Despite representing Wisconsin since he was just 28, he capitalised on the Tea Party wave of 2010, when like-minded radicals swept into Congress on a wave of discontent with incumbents and looked to him as a figurehead.

Mr Ryan has earned quiet admiration from many opponents with his willingness to make comprehensive calls for drastic action, including during two televised clashes with Mr Obama.

"There are a lot of people in the other party who might disagree with Paul Ryan," Mr Romney said on Saturday. "I don't know of anyone who doesn't respect his character and judgment."

None the less, Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader said: "Romney's choice demonstrates that catering to the Tea Party and the far-right is more important to him that standing up for the middle class."

Mr Ryan completes the first presidential ticket in American history not to feature a protestant. His selection also means there will be no military veteran on either side for the first time since 1932.

He lives with his wife Janna, their daughter Elizabeth, 10, and sons Charles, eight, and Samuel, seven, in his home town of Janesville, Wisconsin. They own a six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mock-Georgian mansion that appears on the National Register of Historic Places.

While he is a multimillionaire, he claims to embody the austerity agenda by sleeping in his Congressional office while working in Washington. Like many present-day members, he hurries home for long weekends with his family rather than cultivating working friendships in the capital.

Mr Ryan has been a fitness fanatic since his father died from a heart attack when he was 16. "That forced him to grow up earlier than any young man should," Mr Romney noted.

He leads a group of colleagues in early-morning sessions of a workout known as P90X, which claims to be "a revolutionary system of 12 sweat-inducing, muscle-pumping exercises designed to transform your body from regular to ripped".

He works out to Rage Against The Machine, the anti-establishment US punk-rock band whose most famous chorus repeats the line "**** you, I won't do what you tell me".

Mr Ryan graduated from the University of Miami in Ohio in economics and political science in 1992, interning in a senator's office during his holidays. Following a brief career in marketing, he became a speechwriter for Jack Kemp, Bob Dole's Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1996.

After their defeat to Bill Clinton, Mr Ryan became an aide to a senator before running for Congress himself in 1998.

Depending on the season, Mr Ryan is also an enthusiastic hunter, skiier and fisherman. He has posed for photographs on display in his office pulling his bow and arrow, and atop a succesfully targeted deer.

He is fond of "noodling", a southern pasttime in which catfish are caught by hand, after latching on to the fisherman's arm. Mr Ryan describes the hobby, which he picked up from his wife, an Oklahoma native, as "really exhilarating".

Mr Romney will hope his new recruit can help him secure the swing state of Wisconsin, where Republicans won a symbolically powerful victory earlier this year. A Democratic attempt to unseat the Republican governor, Scott Walker, over his austerity plans, was rejected by voters.

He got to know the congressman during campaign stops in the state. The native son took Mr Romney to Culver's restaurant, a local favourite, for their speciality of butter burgers and chocolate malts.

It emerged on Saturday that Mr Romney had decided on Mr Ryan on August 1 - just after his gaffe-strewn foreign tour – and told him that day, both men keeping the secret close since then. Mr Ryan and his family claimed to have departed for a family holiday to Colorado late last week.

Despite the grandeur of Saturday's announcement, Mr Romney found time for yet another gaffe.

Concluding his opening remarks, he introduced Mr Ryan as "the next President of the United States".

Realising his error, he retook the microphone.

"Every now and then I'm known to make a mistake," he said, to laughs from the crowd. "But I can tell you – I did not make a mistake with this guy."